


You're My Home

by Lady_Phenyx



Series: Fluffvember 2019 [19]
Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson, 楽しいムーミン一家 | Moomin (Anime 1990)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Everybody Loves Snusmumriken | Snufkin, Fluff, Found Family, Love Confessions, Mother-Son Relationship, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 12:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21494608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Phenyx/pseuds/Lady_Phenyx
Summary: It's a party to celebrate ten years since the comet came, and it's time for more than one emotional conversation.Fluffvember Day 19: “I’ve never felt so strongly about someone before. I’m terrified”/“I’m so glad I met you.”/“I used to pray to have someone like you in my life.”/“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me” / I look at you and I'm home
Relationships: Muminmamman | Moominmamma & Snusmumriken | Snufkin, Mumintrollet | Moomintroll/Snorkfröken | The Snork Maiden/Snusmumriken | Snufkin, Springtime Trio
Series: Fluffvember 2019 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533602
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	You're My Home

Snufkin glanced up from his fishing and felt a fond smile settle onto his face.

Snorkmaiden and Moomin were coming up the path, paw in paw, leaning against each other.

Snorkmaiden was flushed a light, happy pink, and Snufkin felt a soft surge of pleasure that she'd stopped trying to hide the way her fur could change with her emotions and stay the same shade of white all the time, the way she'd thought she needed to in order to be attractive.

She was much less stressed this way. Prettier, too, with her heart on her sleeve.

They caught sight of Snufkin and waved enthusiastically, hurrying forward as if they hadn't just seen him yesterday.

It made his traitorous heart beat faster.

Snufkin stubbornly ignored it. He had practice with that by now, given he'd felt like this for years now. He wasn't going to come between them, and he wouldn't have been able to choose even if he had been so cruel, given how much he loved them both. He'd just keep hiding it from everyone.

“Snufkin!” Moomin called. “Mamma says to tell you there's going to be a party tonight! It's been ten years since the comet, and everyone wants to celebrate making it this far! Will you come?”

“Please do,” Snorkmaiden added before Snufkin could turn the invitation down. “We wouldn't have made it if it weren't for you. And it's always better when you come, even if it's just for a little while.”

…someday, Snufkin vowed, he'd learn to resist those pleading eyes they were giving him, but when it was both of them at once... “All right,” he said, knowing he was being weak but unable to say no to something this small.

“Yay!” Moomin cheered. “Thank you, Snufkin! It's on the beach, tonight, down by the small cliffs.”

“We decided to have it on the beach since the ocean coming back showed we were going to be okay,” Snorkmaiden said, swirling happy pastels.

“It was Snorkmaiden's idea,” Moomin added. “We all remembered how it felt to see you standing on the rocks and telling us it was coming back, and how it felt when it came rushing back.”

Snufkin glanced up at Snorkmaiden, whose pastels were tinting now towards a soft pink. He smiled up at her, and the pink went deeper, to his confusion. But he didn't point it out.

“It's a very nice idea,” was all he said. “I'll be there.”

\---XXX---

Snufkin arrived at the party after it was in full swing.

Parties weren't so bad anymore, not now that just about everyone in Moomin Valley knew him and he knew them in return.

It still struck him as strange, sometimes – that there was a place, that there were people, that drew him back year after year, that he had tied himself to this place.

That his heart had tied him to certain people – and not just Moomin and Snorkmaiden, no matter how hard his heart beat around them, no matter how many daydreams and fantasies he'd had about being able to tell them how he felt, how many nightmares he'd had about them forgetting or rejecting him.

He could pick out Moominmamma and Moominpappa, his sisters, even Sniff and Snork among the rest, and knew he couldn't leave and never see them again. Not anymore.

So much for being 'free'...and yet, he didn't resent it. He wasn't bound here, he could leave if he wanted. He chose to come back. And wasn't that what freedom really meant?

Snufkin's musings were interrupted as people noticed his approach and called out greetings.

Snufkin waved as he moved through the crowd, feeling the familiar anxiety well up, ebbing away as he was greeted again and again, reassured once more of his place here.

There was no one here who would question that, or what he did. And that was another kind of freedom.

Someone pressed a plate of food into his paws, another a drink, and he was still holding them when he found Moominmamma and sat next to her, offering her the food.

She laughed softly and took a piece, giving Snufkin a chance to set down his cup. Moominmamma laid a paw on his arm and leaned over to nuzzle his hair in a motherly Moomin kiss, an affection he accepted easily and happily.

“I'm so glad you're here,” Moominmamma said, and something about the way she said it made Snufkin pause, sure she didn't just mean the party. She raised a paw to stroke Snufkin's shoulder as he looked at her, and smiled gently, lovingly. “I was surprised when you came back that first year, and each time you do brings me so much joy. I know you're not fond of emotional displays, and I don't say it to tie you here, but I just want you to know how much I love you. To know that you're so loved, and by so many.” She paused, giving Snufkin a moment for the words to sink in.

When he continued to stare at her blankly, she touched his shoulder, gently, silently, asking for a hug. The plate was set aside and Snufkin let himself be drawn into her arms, squeezing back, overcome.

Moominmamma stroked his back, grateful for each moment he let her hold him.

Snufkin rubbed his cheek against her fur. “I love you too, Mamma,” he said softly.

Moominmamma laughed softly as they drew apart, wiping at her face. “Oh, you're getting me emotional,” she said, her free paw stroking Snufkin's face.

“I never realized how much I needed someone like you in my life until I started coming back to Moomin Valley every year,” Snufkin said quietly, glancing down, not quite able to meet Moominmamma's eyes. He glanced back up, a shaky smile on his face.

It took Moominmamma time before she could respond to that declaration, soft and shy as it was.

“I have a feeling I'm not the only reason you come back,” Moominmamma said gently, before drawing him back in for another, shorter hug. “Go on now, or we'll both be to overwhelmed to enjoy the party.”

Snufkin chuckled and kissed her cheek before slipping back into the crowd, seeking out somewhere to recover before someone could see how emotional he was at the moment and make him embarrass them all by bursting into tears, as his heart felt too full to hold everything it was feeling at the moment.

\---XXX---

Snufkin sat on the edge of the cliff, watching the stars and waves, how the bonfire and fireworks reflected in the water. He thought he might have calmed down enough to rejoin the party soon – he could hear Little My and Mymble and Ninny down below, and he wanted to go say hello at the least. He didn't get to see Ninny nearly as often as he wished to.

He heard a step behind him and half turned, expecting to see Moomin behind him.

It was Snorkmaiden instead, to his vague surprise, walking softly up the path, flower crown in paw.

Then again, she had been seeking out his company more and more often recently, so it shouldn't have been.

She looked to the spot next to Snufkin and back to him, silently asking, and he nodded.

He started as something settled on his hat, and he took it off to see the flower crown Snorkmaiden had been carrying settled around the brim.

Snorkmaiden was carefully sitting down, not looking at Snufkin, and so didn't notice when he slipped the crown off his hat and onto his head, setting hat aside with a rock on the brim to keep the wind from stealing it.

They spent a few moments staring out again over the ocean. Snorkmaiden shifted, her paw slowly moving until she touched Snufkin's, sitting on the ground between them. Snufkin went still, pointedly not looking at their paws.

“The comet was so frightening,” she said softly, looking up at the stars. “I really thought everything might end. But I can't be sorry about any of it. Because it meant I got to meet you again. I didn't think I would. I'm so glad everyday that I got to meet you. You and Moomin are the best thing that's ever happened to me.”

She glanced over at Snufkin then and went softer at the sight of him in the flower crown she'd brought up, the petals and his hair ruffled gently in the sea breeze. “I don't know how we'd have gotten through it without you. I was so frightened I think I spent most of it just being there.”

“Don't sell yourself short,” Snufkin said, carefully not looking at her. He wasn't sure what might happen tonight if he did, with how emotional he was already feeling. “You saved Moomin and I from the giant octopus. And you and Moomin were there for me when I broke down over the sea.”

“That frightened me worse than anything, to see you break down. It really seemed like everything was lost when even you couldn't take it anymore.

Not...not that you can't,” she hurried to add. “Break down, or be upset and cry, I mean, it's just...oh, I'm not saying this properly. You'd just been so unfazed until then, I guess it really brought home how much danger we were in. But I think I've had a crush on you ever since.”

Snufkin looked about to speak, and she rushed on, the anxious reds and purples of her fur muted by the moonlight. “I love Moomin, I do. But I've been crushing on you for so long. I tried not to, since I was dating Moomin, but it got stronger the more I learned about you instead. And I was jealous for so long – it's hard not to be when your boyfriend pines for someone else. Until you start pining for them, too.”

They turned at the sound of a foot on the sand, and found Moomin coming to join them. He waved a little shyly, and they smiled back, if a little shakily. He stepped closer to join them on the cliff, sitting on Snufkin's free side.

“What are you talking about up here?” he asked.

“The comet. Meeting each other,” Snorkmaiden said. “Telling Snufkin how I've had a crush on him for years. It slipped out.”

“Oh! Oh dear...” Moomin said. “How's he taking it? Snufkin? You okay?”

Snufkin turned to look at Moomin, the light reflecting off his wide eyes, and Moomin hurried to explain. “We've both been in love with you for years, but we just...we didn't figure it out...”

“_You_ didn't figure it out,” Snorkmaiden broke in, somewhere between exasperated and amused.

“I didn't figure it out until last year, and we were both keeping quiet so we wouldn't hurt each other or you. Until Snorkmaiden figured it out. Please don't stop coming back just because of this,” he added in a small voice. “We can not bring it up again, but you should know. We were so scared, of driving you away or hurting you or each other. We're still scared.”

“...Snufkin?” Snorkmaiden asked when Snufkin still didn't respond.

Snufkin drew his legs up, wrapping his arms around them. “I'm terrified,” he said quietly, making them both start. “I’ve never felt so strongly about someone before. I've been keeping it to myself as long as you have. You've both been so happy, and I didn't want to hurt either of you or come between you. Just like you were doing, I suppose. I don't have pretty words for you. I don't have the words at all.”

“Try,” Snorkmaiden urged.

Snufkin glanced at her from under his flower crown, the petals brushing against his face as the wind teased his hair. “You're not going to drive us away,” she promised. “No matter how mangled the words are. We know you're not one for pretty words – even if you deserve to hear them.”

They could see Snufkin's mouth twitch. “I've had people try and use pretty words on me before,” he said dryly. He raised his head, coming out of hiding. “Somehow, I think I'll like them better when they come from one of you. At least you'll mean them. That's what I don't like about them, is how many times they're empty.”

He paused, looking out over the sea, and said, “I'm not sure what it means to love someone, but I know my heart races when I see either of you. I want to be near you, enough that I only travel far from the valley when you're asleep. You're the reason I started coming back to the same place again and again. I...I look at you, and I'm _home_. I've been too afraid to lose that to say anything.”

“...that seemed pretty poetic to me,” Moomin said after a breathless pause. “Oh, Snufkin!”

For the third time that night Snufkin found himself held close, and once again he threw himself into the contact.

“We love you _so much_,” Moomin whispered, squeezing tight. Snorkmaiden joined the hug, and Snufkin sank into it.

After a minute, a thought hit him, and he voiced it. “...Little My is going to be so smug about this.”


End file.
